3 days ago
Ireland star goes against the grain with his verdict of Roy Keane as assistant manager under Martin O'Neill
JOHN EGAN defended Roy Keane's tenure as Republic of Ireland assistant coach - while insisting "I wasn't there" for the infamous spat with Harry Arter and Jonathan Walters.
Ireland
qualified for Euro 2016.
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Roy Keane had a spat with two Ireland stars towards the end of his spell as Ireland assistant manager
Credit: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
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John Egan defended Keane's spell with the team
Credit: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
The end of this spell was dogged by a
A leaked voice clip from Ireland defender Stephen Ward claimed that Keane had called Arter a "c**t" and a "w****r" after the midfielder sat out a training session due to injury.
Hull
City defender Egan had made his senior Ireland debut in March 2017.
And the Corkman insisted Keane was a "top coach" who was brilliant with him.
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Speaking on
"If Roy Keane is standing behind you and says run, you run.
"For me as a
Cork
man, he was brilliant with me.
"I don't think I was there that time so I don't know what happened there.
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Breaking
"Roy was class."
Keane's initial outburst at Arter led to an intervention from Jonathan Walters.
Republic of Ireland assistant boss Roy Keane slams Harry Arter and Jonathan Walters in Stephen Ward's leaked WhatsApp video
In the leaked recording, Ward claimed Roy "said something under his breath about
Jonny
" which led to Walters "losing his head" and confronting him.
The
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That was in reference to an interview on The Late Late Show in which he opened up on the death of his mother when he was a boy, his brother's 2018 passing, his wife's miscarriage and his daughter being diagnosed with scoliosis.
Asked about the Keane feud on
Walters was captain of The Blues under Keane before leaving the club in 2010 to join Stoke in the
And when he was asked why he thought
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And while he did not go into too much detail, he teased that the truth will come out eventually.
He said: "At some point I might go through my career and do a book and it will be a story that no one knows anything about.
"It will be a story that no other player has gone through, I can guarantee that. I will respond at some point.
'After I left Ipswich we were fine with Ireland until he brought everything up again.
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"The Irish stuff was ridiculous, he was the assistant manager of a national team, you're preparing for a game in France, and that was wrong.
'He came back with that because I'm the only player who ever got one over on him, not just once but twice, and he knows it, and that's probably what annoys him.'
